General
History of the HighlandsThe
Living Conditions in the Highlands prior to 1745 (Part 2)

Almost the only fuel used
by the Highlanders, not only in the early part but during the whole of
last century, was peat, still used in many Highland districts, and the
only fuel used in a great part of Orkney and Shetland. The cutting and
preparing of the fuel, composed mainly of decayed roots of various plants,
consumed a serious part of the Highlander’s time, as it was often to be
found only at a great distance from his habitation; and he had to cut not
only for himself but for his land, the process itself being long and
troublesome, extending from the time the sods were first cut till they
were formed in a stack at the side of the farmer’s or cottar’s door,
over five or six months; and after all, they frequently turned out but a
wretched substitute for either wood or coal; often they were little else
than a mass of red earth. It generally took five people to cut peats out
of one spot. One cut the peats, which were placed by another on the edge
of the trench from which they were cut; a third spread them on the field,
while a fourth trimmed them, a fifth resting in the meantime ready to
relieve the man that was cutting.

As would naturally be
expected, the houses and other buildings of the Highlanders were quite in
keeping with their agricultural implements and general mode of life. Even
the tacksmen or gentlemen of the clan, the relations of the chief, lived
in huts or hovels, that the poorest farmer in most parts of Scotland at
the present day, would shudder to house his cattle in. In most cases they
appear to have been pretty much the same as those of the small farmers or
cottars, only perhaps a little larger. Burt mentions such a house
belonging to a gentleman of the clan, which he visited in one of his
peregrinations round Inverness. He says it consisted of one long apartment
without any partition, "where the family was at one end, and some
cattle at the other." The owner of this rude habitation must have
been somewhat shrewd and sensible, as he could not only perceive the
disadvantages of this mode of life to which he was doomed, but had insight
and candour enough to be able to account for his submission to them.
"The truth is," Captain Burt reports him to have said, "we
are insensibly inured to it by degrees; for, when very young, we know no
better; being grown up, we are inclined, or persuaded by our near
relations, to marry—thence come children, and fondness for them but
above all," says he, "is the love of our chief, so
strongly is it inculcated to us in our infancy; and if it were not for
that, I think the Highlands would be much thinner of people than they now
are." How much truth there is in that last statement is clearly
evidenced by the history of the country after the abolition of the
hereditary jurisdictions, which was the means of breaking up the old
intimate relation between, and mutual dependence of, chief and people.
Burt says elsewhere, that near to Inverness, there were a few gentlemen’s
houses built of stone and lime, but that in the inner part of the
mountains there were no stone-buildings except the barracks, and that one
might have gone a hundred miles without seeing any other dwellings but
huts of turf. By the beginning of last century the houses of most of the
chiefs, though comparatively small, seem to have been substantially built
of stone and lime, although their food and manner of life would seem to
have been pretty much the same as those of the tacksmen. The children of
chiefs and gentlemen seem to have been allowed to run about in much the
same apparently uncared for condition as those of the tenants, it having
been a common saying, according to Burt, "that a gentleman’s bairns
are to be distinguished by their speaking English." To illustrate
this he tells us that once when dining with a laird not very far from
Inverness—possibly Lord Lovat—he met an English soldier at the house
who was catching birds for the laird to exercise his hawks on. This
soldier told Burt that for three or four days after his first coming, he
had observed In the kitchen ("an out-house hovel") a parcel of
dirty children half naked, whom he took to belong to some poor tenant, but
at last discovered they were part of the family. "But," says the
fastidious English Captain, "although these were so little regarded,
the young laird, about the age of fourteen, was going to the university;
and the eldest daughter, about sixteen, sat with us at table, clean and
genteelly dressed."

There is no reason to doubt
Burt’s statement when he speaks of what he saw or heard, but it must be
remembered he was an Englishman, with all an Englishman’s prejudices in
favour of the manners and customs, the good living, and general
fastidiousness which characterise his own half of the kingdom, and many of
an Englishman’s prejudices against the Scotch generally and the
turbulent Highlanders in particular. His letters are, however, of the
utmost value in giving us a clear and interesting glimpse into the mode of
life of the Highlanders shortly before 1745, and most Scotchmen at least
will be able to sift what is fact from what is exaggeration and English
colouring. Much, no doubt, of what Burt tells of the Highlanders when he
was there is true, but it is true also of people then living in the same
station in other parts of Scotland, where however among the better
classes, and even among the farmers, even then, there was generally a
rough abundance combined with a sort of affectation of rudeness of manner.
It is not so very long ago since the son of the laird, and he might have
been a duke, and the son of the hind were educated at the same parish
school; and even at the present day it is no uncommon sight to see the
sons of the highest Scottish nobility sitting side by side on the same
college-benches with the sons of day labourers, ploughmen, mechanics,
farmers, and small shop-keepers. Such a sight is rare in the English
universities; where there are low-born intruders, it will in most cases be
found that they belong to Scotland. We do not make these remarks to
prejudice the reader in any way against the statements of Burt or to
depreciate the value of his letters; all we wish the reader to understand
is that he was an Englishman, rather fond of gossip, and perhaps of adding
point to a story at the expense of truth, with all the prejudices and want
of enlightenment and cosmopolitanism of even educated Englishmen of 150
years ago. He states facts correctly, but from a peculiar and very
un-Scottish point of view. His evidence, even when stripped of its slight
colouring, is invaluable, and, even to the modern Highlander, must prove
that his ancestors lived in a very miserable way, although they themselves
might not have realised its discomfort and wretchedness, but on the
contrary, may have been as contented as the most well-to-do English squire
or prosperous English farmer.

Even among the higher
members of the clans, the tacksmen and most extensive farmers, the fare
does not seem to have been by any means abundant, and generally was of the
commonest kind. For a few months in the end of the year, when the cattle
and sheep were in condition to be killed, animal food appears to have been
plentiful enough, as it must also have been after any successful
cattle-foray. But for the rest of the year, the food of even the gentlemen
in many places must have been such as any modern farmer would have turned
up his nose at. In other districts again, where the chief was well-off and
liberal, he appears to have been willing enough to share what he had with
his relations the higher tenants, who again would do their best to keep
from want the under tenants and cottars. Still it will be seen, the living
of all was very precarious. "it is impossible for me," says
Burt, "from my own knowledge, to give you an account of the ordinary
way of living of these gentlemen; because, when any of us (the English)
are invited to their houses there is always an appearance of plenty to
excess; and it has been often said they will ransack all their tenants
rather than we should think meanly of their housekeeping: but I have heard
it from many whom they have employed, and perhaps had little regard to
their observations as inferior people, that, although they have been
attended at dinner by five or six servants, yet, with all that state, they
have often dined upon oatmeal varied several ways, pickled herrings, or
other such cheap and indifferent diet." Burt complains much of their
want of hospitality; but at this he need not have been surprised. He and
every other soldier stationed in the Highlands would be regarded with
suspicion and even dislike by the natives, who were by no means likely to
give them any encouragement to frequent their houses, and pry into their
secrets and mode of life. The Highlanders were well-known for their
hospitality, and are so in many places even at the present day, resembling
in this respect most people living in a wild and not much frequented
country. As to the everyday fare above mentioned, those who partook of it
would consider it no hardship, if indeed Burt had not been mistaken or
been deceived as to details. Oatmeal, in the form of porridge and brose,
is common even at the present day among the lower classes in the country,
and even among substantial farmers. As for the other part of it, there
must have been plenty of salmon and trout about the rivers and lochs of
Inverness-shire, and abundance of grain of various kinds on the hills, so
that the gentlemen to whom the inquisitive Captain refers, must have taken
to porridge and pickled herring from choice: and it is well known, that in
Scotland at least, when a guest is expected, the host endeavours to
provide something better than common for his entertainment. Burt also
declares that he has often seen a laird’s lady coming to church with a
maid behind her carrying her shoes and stockings, which she put on at a
little distance from the church. Indeed, from what he says, it would seem
to have been quite common for those in the position of ladies and
gentlemen to go about in this free and easy fashion. Their motives for
doing so were no doubt those of economy and comfort— not because they
had neither shoes nor stockings to put on. The practice is quite common at
the present day in Scotland, for both respectable men and women when
travelling on a dusty road on a broiling summer-day, to do so on their
bare feet, as being so much more comfortable and less tiresome than
travelling in heavy boots and thick worsted stockings. No one thinks the
worse of them for it, nor infers that they must be wretchedly ill off. The
practice has evidently at one time been much more common even among the
higher classes, but, like many other customs, lingers now only among the
common people.

From all we can learn,
however, the chiefs and their more immediate dependants and relations
appear by no means to have been ill-off, so far as the necessaries of life
went, previous to the rebellion of 1745. They certainly had not a
superfluity of money, but many of the chiefs were profuse in their
hospitality, and had always abundance if not variety to eat and drink.

Indeed it is well known,
that about 200 years before the rebellion, an enactment had to be made by
parliament limiting the amount of wine and brandy to be used by the
various chiefs. Claret, in Captain IBurt’s time, was as common m and
around Inverness as it was in Edinburgh; the English soldiers are said to
have found it selling at sixpence a quart, and left it at three or four
times that price. In their habits and mode of life, their houses and other
surroundings, these Highland gentlemen were no doubt rough and rude and
devoid of luxuries, and not over particular as to cleanliness either of
body or untensils, but still always dignified and courteous, respectful to
their superiors and affable to their inferiors. Highland pride is still
proverbial, and while often very amusing and even pitiable, has often been
of considerable service to those who possess it, stimulating them to keep
up their self-respect and to do their best in whatever situation they may
be placed. It was this pride that made the poorest and most tattered of
the tacksmen tenants with whom Burt came in contact, conduct himself as if
he had been lord of all he surveyed, and look with suspicion and perhaps
with contempt upon the unknown English red-coat.

As a kind of set-off to
Burt’s disparaging account of the condition of Highland gentlemen, and
yet to some extent corroborating it, we quote the following from the Old
Statistical Account of the parish of Boleskine and Abertarf in
Inverness-shire. The district to which this account refers was at least no
worse than most other Highland parishes, and in some respects must have
been better than those that were further out of the reach of civilisation.

The following quotations
from Mr Dunbar’s Social Life in
Former Days, giving details of
household furniture and expenses, may be taken as "a correct index of
the comforts and conveniences" of the best off of the old Highland
lairds; for as they refer to Morayshire, just on the borders of the
Highlands, they cannot be held as referring to the Highlands generally,
the interior and western districts of which were considerably behind the
border lands in many respects:-

INVENTAR OF PLENISHINGIN
THUNDERTON’S LODGING IN DUFFUS, MAY 25, 1708.

Strypt Room.

"Camlet hangings and
curtains, feather bed and bolster, two pillows, five pair blankets, and an
Inglish blanket, a green and white cover, a blew and white chamber-pot, a
blew and white bason, a black jopand table and two looking-glasses, a
jopand tee-table with a tee-pat and plate, and nine cups and nine dyshes,
and a tee silver spoon, two glass sconces, two little bowles, with aleam
steep and a pewter head, eight black ken chairs, with eight silk cushens
conform, an easie chair with a big cushen, a jopand cabinet with a walnut
tree stand, a grate, shuffle, tonges, and brush; in the closet, three
piece of paper hangings, a chamber box. with a pewter pan therein, and a
brush for cloaths.

Closet next
the Strypt Room.

Four dishes, two assiets,
six broth plates, and twelve flesh plates, a quart flagon, and a pynt
flagon, a pewter porenger, and a pewter flacket, a white iron jaculale
pot, and a skellet pann, twenty-one timber plates, a winter for warming
plates at the fire, two Highland plaids, and a sewed blanket, a bolster,
and four pillows, a chamber-box, a sack with wool, and a white iron
dripping pann.

In the farest Closet.

"Seventeen drinking
glasses, with a glass tumbler end two decanters, a oil cruet, and a
vinegar cruet, a urinal glass, a large blew and white posset pot, a white
leam posset pat, a blew and white bowl, a dozen of blew and white leam
plates, three milk dishes, a blew and white leam porenger, and a white
leam porenger, four jelly pots, and a little butter dish, a crying chair,
and a silk craddle.

In the Moyhair Room.

"A note of stamped
cloath hangings, and a moyhair bed with feather bed, bolster, and two
pillows, six pair blankets, and an lnglish blanket and a twilt, a leam
chamber-pat, five moyhalr chairs, two looking-glasses, a cabinet, a table,
two stands, a table cloak, and window hangings, a chamber-box with a
pewter pann, a leam bason, with a grate and tongs and a brush; in the
closet, two carpets, a piece of Arres, three pieces lyn’d strypt
hangings, three wawed strypt curtains, two piece gilded leather, three
trunks and a craddle, a chamber-box, and a pewter pann, thirty-three pound
of heckled lint, a ston of vax, and a firkin of sop, and a brush for
cloaths, two pair blankets, and a single blanket.

In lhe Dyning-Room.

"A sute of gilded
hangings, two folding tables, eighteen low-backed ken chairs, a grate, a
fender, a brass tongs, shuffle, brush, and timber brush, and a poring
iron, and a glass ken.

In my Lady’s Room.

"Gilded hangings,
standing bed, and box bed, stamped drogged hangings, feather bed, bolster,
and two pillows, a pallise, five pair of blankets, and a single one, and a
twilt, and two pewter chamber-pots, six chairs, table, and looking-glass a
little folding table, and a chist of drawers, tonges, shuffle, porrin-iron
and a brush, two window curtains of linen; In the Laird's closet, two
trunks, two chists, and a citrena cabinet, a table, and a looking-glass,
the dow holes, two carpet chairs, and a chamber-box with a pewter pan, and
a little bell, and a brush tar cloath.

My Lady’s Closet.

"A cabinet, three
presses, three kists, and a spicerie box, a dozen leam white plates, a
blew and white leam plate, a little blew butter plate, a white leam
porenger, and three gelly pots, two leam dishes, and two big timber capes,
four tin congs, a new pewter basson, a pynt chopen, and matchken stoups,
two copper tankers, two pewter salts, a pewter mustard box, a white iron
paper and suggar box, two white iron graters, a pot for starch, and a
pewter spoon, thirteen candlesticks, five pair snuffers and snif dishes
conform, a brass mortar and pistol, a lantern, a timber box, a dozen
knives and a dozen forks, and a carpet chair, two milk conga, a milk cirn,
and kirn staff, a sisymilk, and a cheswel, a neprie basket, and two new
pewter chamber pots.

A Note of Plate.

"Three silver salvers,
four salts, a large tanker, a big spoon, and thirteen littler spoons, two
jugs, a sugar box, a mustard box, a paper box, and two little spoons.

"Received ten dozen and one of chapen
bottles full of claret. More received—eleven dozen and one of pynt
bottles, wbereof there was six broke in the home-coming. 1709, June the
4th, received from Elgin forty-three chopen bottles of claret."

"Till the beginning of
this century, all the heritors and wadsetters in this parish lived in
houses composed of cupple trees, and the walls and thatch made up of sod
and divot; but in every wadsetter’s house there was a spacious hall,
containing a largetable, where he and his family and dependants eat their
two meals a-day with this single distinction, that he and his family sat
at the one end of the table, and his dependants at the other; and it was
reckoned no disparagement for the gentlemen to sit with commoners in the
inns, such as the country then afforded, where one cap, and
afterwards a single glass, went round the whole company. As the
inhabitants experienced no want, and generally lived on the produce of
their farms, they were hospitable to strangers, providing they did not
attempt a settlement among them. But it was thought then disgraceful for
any of the younger sons of these wadsetters to follow any other profession
than that of arms and agriculture; and it is in the remembrance of many
now living, when the meanest tenant would think it disparaging to sit at
the same table with a manufacturer."

The following quotation
from the Statistical Account of Rannoch, in Perthshire, will give an idea
of another phase of the life of Highland gentlemen in those days, as well
as enable the reader to see how it was, considering the general poverty of
the country, the low rent, the unproductiveness of the soil, and the low
price of cattle, they were still able to keep open table and maintain more
retainers than the land could support. "Before the year 1745 Rannoch
was in an uncivilized barbarous state, under no check, or restraint of
laws. As an evidence of this, one of the principal proprietors never could
be compelled to pay his debts. Two messengers were sent from Perth, to
give him a charge of horning. He ordered a dozen of his retainers to bind
them across two hand-barrows, and carry them, in this state, to the bridge
of Cainachan, at nine miles distance. His property in particular was a
nest of thieves. They laid the whole country, from Stirling to Coupar of
Angus, under contribution, obliging the inhabitants to pay them Black
Meal, as it is called, to save their property from being plundered. This
was the centre of this kind of traffic. In the months of September and
October they gathered to the number of about 300, built temporary huts,
drank whisky all the time, settled accounts for stolen cattle, and
received balances. Every man then bore arms. It would have required a
regiment to have brought a thief from that country."

As to the education of the
Highland gentry, in this respect they seem not to have been so far behind
the rest of the country, although latterly they appear to have degenerated
in this as in other respects; for, as will be seen in the Chapter on
Gaelic Literature, there must have been at one time many learned men in
the Highlands, and a taste for literature seems not to have been uncommon.
Indeed, from various authorities quoted in the Introduction to Stuart’s Costume
of the Clans, it was no uncommon accomplishment in the 16th and 17th
centuries for a Highland gentleman to be able to use both Gaelic and
Latin, even when he could scarcely manage English. "If, in some
instances," says Mrs Grant, "a chief had some taste for
literature, the Latin poets engaged his attention more forcibly than the
English, which he possibly spoke and wrote, but inwardly despised, and in
fact did not understand well enough to relish its delicacies, or taste its
poetry." "Till of late years," says the same writer on the
same page, "letters were unknown in the Highlands except among the
highest rank of gentry and the clergy. The first were but partially
enlightened at best. Their minds had been early imbued with the stores of
knowledge peculiar to their country, and having no view beyond that of
passing their lives among their tenants and dependants, they were not much
anxious for any other. In some instances, the younger brothers of
patrician families were sent early out to lowland seminaries, and
immediately engaged in some active pursuit for the advancement of their
fortune." In short, so far as education went, the majority of the
Highland lairds and tacksmen appear to have been pretty much on the same
footing withthose in a similar station in other parts of the
kingdom.

From what has been said
then as to the condition of the chiefs or lairds and their more immediate
dependants the tacksmen, previous to 1745, it may be inferred that they
were by no means ill-off so far as the necessaries and even a few of the
luxuries of life went. Their houses were certainly not such as a gentleman
or even a well-to-do farmer would care to inhabit now-a-days, neither in
build nor in furnishing; but the chief and principal tenants as a rule had
always plenty to eat and drink, lived in a rough way, were hospitable to
their friends, and, as far as they were able, kind and lenient to their
tenants.

It was the sub-tenants and
cottars, the common people or peasantry of the Highlands, whose condition
called for the utmost commiseration. It was they who suffered most from
the poverty of the land, the leanness of the cattle, the want of trades
and manufactures, the want, in short, of any reliable and systematic means
of subsistence. If the crops failed, or disease or a severe winter killed
the half of the cattle, it was they who suffered, it was they who were the
victims of famine, a thing of not rare occurrence in the Highlands. It
seems indeed impossible that any one now living could imagine anything
more seemingly wretched and miserable than the state of the Highland
subtenants and cottars as described in various contemporary accounts. The
dingiest hovel in the dirtiest narrowest "close" of Edinburgh
may be taken as a fair representative of the house inhabited formerly in
the Highlands by the great mass of the farmers and cottars. And yet they
do not by any means appear to have regarded themselves as the most
miserable of beings, but on the contrary to have been lighthearted and
well content if they could manage to get the year over without absolute
starvation. No doubt this was because they knew no better state of things,
and because love for the chief would make them endure any thing with
patience. Generally the houses of the sub-tenants and cottars who occupied
a farm were built in one spot, "all irregularly placed, some one way,
some another, and at any distance, look like so many heaps of dirt."
They were generally built in some small valley or strath by the side of a
stream or loch, and the collection of houses on one farm was known as the
"toon" or town, a term still used in Shetland in the very same
sense, and in many parts of Scotland applied to the building occupied by
even a single farmer. The cottages were generally built of round stones
without any cement, thatched with sods, and sometimes heath; sometimes
they were divided into two apartments by a slender partition, but
frequently no such division was made. In the larger half resided the
family, this serving for kitchen, eating, and sleeping-room to all. In the
middle of this room, on the floor, was the peat fire, above which was a
gaping hole to allow the escape of the smoke, very little however of this
finding its way out, the surplus, after every corner of the room was
filled, escaping by the door. The other half of the cottage was devoted to
the use of the live-stock when "they did not choose to mess and lodge
with the family." Sometimes these cottages were built of turf or mud,
and sometimes of wattle-work like baskets, a common system of fencing even
yet in many parts of the Highlands where young wood is abundant. As a rule
these huts had to be thatched and otherwise repaired every year to keep
them habitable; indeed, in many places it was quite customary every spring
to remove the thatch and use it as manure. Buchanan, even in the latter
half of the 18th century, thus speaks of the dwellings of tenants in the
Western Isles; and, in this respect at least, it is not likely they were
in worse plight than those who lived in the early part of the century.

"The huts of the
oppressed tenants are remarkably naked and open; quite destitute of
furniture, except logs of timbers collected from the wrecks of the sea, to
sit on about the fire, which is placed in the middle of the house, or upon
seats made of straw, like foot hassacks, stuffed with straw or stubble.
Many of them must rest satisfied with large stones placed around the fire
in order. As all persons must have their own blankets to sleep in, they
make their beds in whatever corner suits their fancy, and in the mornings
they fold them up into a small compass, with all their gowns, cloaks,
coats, and petticoats, that are not in use. The cows, goats, and sheep,
with the ducks, hens, and dogs, must have the common benefit of the fire,
and particularly the young and tenderest are admitted next to it. This
filthy sty is never cleaned but once a-year, when they place the dung on
the fields as manure for barley crops. Thus, from the necessity of laying
litter below these cattle to keep them dry, the dung naturally increases
in height almost mid-wall high, so that the men sit low about the fire,
while the cattle look down from above upon the company. "We learn
from the same authority that in the Hebrides every tenant must have had
his own beams and side timbers, the walls generally belonging to the
tacksman or laird, and these were six feet thick with a hollow wall of
rough stones, packed with moss or earth in the centre. A tenant in
removing carried his timbers with him to his new location, and speedily
mounted them on the top of four rude walls. But indeed the condition of
many of the Western Isles both before and after 1745 and even at the
present day, was frequently much more wretched than the Highlands in the
mainland generally. Especially was this the case after 1745, although even
before that their condition can by no means be taken as typical of the
Highlands generally. The following, however, from the Statistical Account
of the island of Tiree, might have applied at the time (about 1745), to
almost any part of the Highlands. "About 40 years ago, a great part
of the lands in this parish lay in their natural uncultivated state, and
such of them as were in culture produced poor starved crops. The tenants
were in poor circumstances, the rents low, the farm houses contemptible.
The communication from place to place was along paths which were to be
known by the footsteps of beasts that passed through them. No turnips,
potatoes, or cabbages, unless a few of the latter in some gardens; and a
great degree of poverty, indolence, and meanness of spirit, among the
great body of the people. The appearance of the people, and their mode of
thinking and acting, were but mean and indelicate; their peats were
brought home in creels; the few things the farmer had to sell were carried
to market upon the backs of horses; and their dunghills were hard by their
doors. "We have reliable testimony, however, to prove, that even the
common Highland tenants on the mainland were but little better off than
those in the islands; their houses were almost equally rude and dirty, and
their furniture nearly as scanty. The Statistical Account of the parish of
Fortingal, in Perthshire, already quoted, gives a miserable account of the
country and inhabitants previous to 1745, as does also the letters of
Captain Burt in reference to the district which came under his
observation; and neither of these districts was likely to be in worse
condition than other parts of the Highlands, further removed from
intercourse with the Lowlands. "At the above period [1745], the bulk
of the tenants in Rannoch had no such thing as beds. They lay on the
ground, with a little heather, or fern, under them. One single blanket was
all their bed-cloaths, excepting their body-cloaths. Now they have
standing-up beds, and abundance of blankets. At that time the houses in
Rannoch were huts of, what they called, ‘Stake and Rife.’ One could
not enter but on all fours; and after entering, it was impossible to stand
upright. Now there are comfortable houses built of stone. Then the people
were miserably dirty, and foul-skinned. Now they are as cleanly, and are
clothed as well as their circumstances will admit of. The rents of the
parish, at that period, were not much above £1500, and the people were
starving. Now they pay £4660 per annum, and upwards, and the
people have fulness of bread. It is hardly possible to believe, on how
little the Highlanders formerly lived. They bled their cows several times
in the year, boiled the blood, eat a little of it like bread, and a most
lasting meal it was. The present incumbent has known a poor man, who had a
small farm hard by him, by this means, with a boll of meal for every mouth
in his family, pass the whole year. "This bleeding of the cattle to
eke out the small supply of oatmeal is testified to by many other
witnesses. Captain Burt refers to it; and Knox, in his View of the
British Empire, thus speaks of it:—" In winter, when the
grounds are covered with snow, and when the naked wilds afford them
neither shelter nor subsistence, the few cows, small, lean, and ready to
drop down through want of pasture, are brought into the hut where the
family resides, and frequently share with them their little stock of meal,
which had been purchased or raised for the family only, while the cattle
thus sustained are bled occasionally to afford nourishment for the
children, after it has been boiled or made into cakes."

It must be borne in mind
that at that time potatoes were all but unknown in the Highlands, and even
in the Lowlands had scarcely got beyond the stage of a garden root. The
staple food of the common Highlander was the various preparations of oats
and barley; even fish seems to have been a rarity, but why it is difficult
to say, as there were plenty both in the sea and in freshwater rivers and
lochs. For a month or two after Michaelmas, the luxury of fresh meat seems
to have been not uncommon, as at that time the cattle were in condition
for being slaughtered; and the more provident or less needy might even go
the length of salting a quantity for winter, hut even this practice does
not seem to have been common except among the tacksmen. "Nothing is
more deplorable than the state of this people in time of winter."
Then they were completely confined to their narrow glens, and very
frequently night and day to their houses, on account of the severe snow
and rain storms. "They have no diversions to amuse them, but sit
brooding in the smoke over the fire till their legs and thighs are
scorched to an extraordinary degree, and many have sore eyes and some are
quite blind. This long continuance in the smoke makes them almost as black
as chimney-sweepers; and when the huts are not water-tight, which is often
the case, the rain that comes through the roof and mixes with the
sootiness of the inside, where all the sticks look like charcoal, falls in
drops like ink. But, in this circumstance, the Highlanders are not very
solicitous about their outward appearance. "We need not wonder under
these circumstances at the prevalence of a loathsome distemper, almost
peculiar to the Highlands, and the universality of various kinds of
vermin; and indeed, had it not been that the people spent so much of their
time in the open air, and that the pure air of the mountains, and been on
the whole temperate in drinking and correct in morals, their condition
must have been much more miserable than it really was. The misery seems to
have been apparent only to onlookers, not to those whose lot it was to
endure it. No doubt they were most mercilessly oppressed sometimes, but
even this oppression they do not seem to have regarded as any hardship, as
calling for complaint on their part:- they were willing to endure anything
at the hands of the chief; who, they believed, could do no wrong.

As a rule the chiefs and
gentlemen of the clan appear to have treated their inferiors with kindness
and consideration, although, at the same time, it was their interest and
the practice of most of them to encourage the notions the people
entertained of their duty to their chiefs, and to keep them in ignorance
of everything that would tend to diminish this profitable belief. No doubt
many of the chiefs themselves believed as firmly in the doctrine of
clanship as their people; but there is good reason to believe, that many
of them encouraged the old system from purely interested and selfish
motives. Burt tells us that when a chief wanted to get rid of any
troublesome fellow, he compelled him, under threat of perpetual
imprisonment or the gallows, to sign a contract for his own banishment,
when he was shipped off from the nearest port by the first vessel bound
for the West Indies. Referring no doubt to Lord Lovat, he informs us that
this versatile and long-headed chief acted on the maxim that to render his
clan poor would double the tie of their obedience; and accordingly he made
use of all oppressive means to that end. "To prevent any diminution
of the number of those who do not offend him, he dissuades from their
purpose all such as show an inclination to traffic, or to put their
children out to trades, as knowing they would, by such an alienat on shake
off at least good part of their slavish attachment to him and his family.
This he does, when downright authority fails, by telling them how their
ancestors chose to live sparingly, and be accounted a martial people,
rather than submit themselves to low and mercenary employments like the
Lowlanders, whom their forefathers always despised for the want of that
warlike temper which they (his vassals) still retained, &c. This
cunning chief was in the habit, according to Dr Chambers’s Domestic
Annals, of sending from Inverness and paying for the insertion in the
Edinburgh Courant and Mercury of glaring accounts of feasts
and rejoicings given by himself or held in his honour. And it is well
known that this same lord during his life-time erected a handsome
tombstone for himself inscribed with a glowing account of his heroic
exploits, intended solely for the use of his clansmen. By these and
similar means would crafty selfish lairds keep their tenants and cottars
in ignorance of their rights, and make them resigned to all the oppressive
impositions laid upon them. No doubt Lovat’s was an extreme case, and
there must have been many gradations of oppressions, and many chiefs who
really cared for their people, and did their best to make them happy and
comfortable, although, considering their circumstances and general
surroundings, it is difficult to see how they could succeed. Yet
notwithstanding their miserable and filthy huts, their scanty and poor
food, their tattered and insufficient clothes, their lean cattle and
meagre crops, their country wet above and below, their apparent want of
all amusements and of anything to lighten their cheerless condition, and
the oppressive exactions of their chiefs, the Highlanders as a body
certainly do not seem to have been an unhappy or discontented people, or
to have had any feeling of the discomfort attending their lot. There seems
to have been little or no grumbling, and it is a most remarkable fact that
suicide was and probably is all but unknown among the Highlanders. Your
genuine Highlander was never what could strictly be called a merry man, he
never had any of the effervescence of the French Celt, nor of the
inimitable never-failing light-hearted humour of his Irish brother; but,
on the other hand, under the old system, at heart he showed little or no
discontent, but on the contrary seems to have been possessed of a
self-satisfied, contented cheerfulness, a quiet resignation to fate, and a
belief in the power and goodness of his chief, together with an ignorance
and contempt for all outside his own narrow sphere, that made him feel as
happy and contented as the most comfortable peasant farmer in France. They
only became discontented and sorely cut up when their chiefs,—it being
no longer the interest of the latter to multiply and support their
retainers,— began to look after their own interests solely, and show
little or no consideration for those who regarded them with reverence
alone, and who thought their chief as much bound to support and care for
them and share his land and his bread with them, as a father is to
maintain his children. After the heritable jurisdictions were abolished,
of course everything was changed; but before that there is every reason to
believe that the Highland tenants and cottars were as contented and happy,
though by no means so well off, as the majority of those in the same
condition throughout the United Kingdom. Indeed the evils which prevailed
formerly in the Highlands, like all other evils, look far worse in
prospect (in this case retrospect) than they do in reality. Misery in
general is least perceived by those who are in its midst, and no doubt
many poor and apparently miserable people wonder what charitable
associations for their relief make so much fuss about, for they themselves
see nothing to relieve. Not that this misery is any the less real and
fruitful of evil consequences, and demanding relief; it is simply that
those who are in the midst of it can’t, very naturally, see it in its
true light. As to the Highlands, the tradition remained for a long time,
and we believe does so still in many parts, that under the old regime,
chiefs were always kind as fathers, and the people faithful and loving as
children; the men were tall and brave, and the women fair and pure; the
cattle were fat and plentiful, and the land produced abundance for man and
beast; the summers were always warm, and the winters mild; the sun was
brighter than ever it has been since, and rain came only when wanted. In
short everybody had plenty with a minimum of work and abundance of time
for dancing and singing and other amusements; every one was as happy as
the day was long. It was almost literally "a land flowing with milk
and honey," as will be seen from the following tradition :- "It
is now indeed idle, and appears fabulous, to relate the crops raised here
30 or 40 years ago. The seasons were formerly so warm, that the people
behoved to unyoke their ploughs as soon as the sun rose, when sowing
barley; and persons yet living, tell, that in traveling through the
meadows in the loan of Fearn, in some places drops of honey were seen as
the dew in the long grass and plantain, sticking to their shoes as they
passed along in a May morning; and also in other parts, their shoes were
oiled as with cream, going through such meadows. Honey and bee hives were
then very plenty. . . Cattle, butter, and cheese, were then very plenty
and cheap." This glowing tradition, we fear, must melt away before
the authentic and too sober accounts of contemporaries and eye-witnesses.

As for wages to day-labourers
and mechanics, in many cases no money whatever was given; every service
being frequently paid for in kind; where money was given, a copper or two
a day was deemed an ample remuneration, and was probably sufficient to
provide those who earned it with a maintenance satisfactory to themselves,
the price of all necessary provisions being excessively low. A pound of
beef or mutton, or a fowl could be obtained for about a penny, a cow cost
about 30 shillings, and a boll of barley or oatmeal less than 10
shillings; butter was about two pence a pound, a stone (21 lbs.) of cheese
was to be got for about two shillings. The following extract, from the Old
Statistical Account of Caputh, will give the reader an idea of the rate of
wages, where servants were employed, of the price of provisions, and how
really little need there was for actual cash, every man being able to do
many things for himself which would now require perhaps a dozen workmen to
perform. This parish being strictly in the lowlands, but on the border of
the Highlands, may be regarded as having been, in many respects, further
advanced than the majority of Highland parishes. "The ploughs and
carts were usually made by the farmer himself; with little iron about the
plough, except the colter and share; none upon the cart or harrows; no
shoes upon the horses; no hempen ropes. In short, every instrument of
farming was procured at small expense, wood being at a very low price.
Salt was a shilling the bushel: little soap was used: they had no candles, instead of which they split the
roots of fir trees, which, though brought 50 or 60 miles from the
Highlands, were purchased for a trifle. Their clothes were of their own
manufacturing. The average price of weaving ten yards of such cloth was
a shilling, which was paid partly in meal and partly in money. The
tailor worked for a quantity of meal, suppose 3 pecks or a firlot
a-year, according to the number of the farmer’s family. In the year
1735, the best ploughman was to be had for L.8 Scots (13s. 4d.) a year,
and what was termed a bounty, which consisted of some articles of
clothing, and might be estimated at 11s. 6d. ; in all L.1, 4s. 10d.
sterling. Four years after, his wages rose to L.24 Scots, (L.2) and
the bounty. Female servants received L.2 Scots, (3s. 4d.) and a bounty
of a similar kind; the whole not exceeding 6s. or 7s. Some years after
their wages rose to 15s. Men received for harvest work L.6 Scots,
(10s.);
women, L.5 Scots, (8s. 4d.). Poultry was sold at 40 pennies Scots,
(3½d.) Oat-meal, bear and oats, at L.4 or L.5 Scots the boll. A horse
that then cost 100 merks Scots, (L.5 : 11 : 1¾) would now cost L.25. An
ox that cost L.20 Scots, (L.1 : 13 : 4) would now be worth L.8 or L.9. Beef
and mutton were sold, not by weight, but by the piece; about 3s. 4d. for
a leg of beef of 3½ stones; and so in proportion. No tea nor sugar was
used: little whisky was drunk, and less of other spirits: but they had plenty of
good ale; there being usually one malt barn (perhaps two) on each
farm."

When a Highlander was in need of anything which he
could not produce or make himself, it was by no means easy for him to obtain it, as by
far the greater part of the Highlands was utterly destitute of towns and
manufactures; there was little or no commerce of any kind. The only
considerable Highland town was Inverness, and, if we can believe Captain
Burt, but little
business was done there; the only other places, which made any pretensions to be towns
were Stornoway and Campbeltown, and these at the time we are writing of, were little better
than fishing villages. There were no manufactures strictly speaking, for
although the people spun their own wool and made their own cloth,
exportation, except perhaps in the case of stockings, seems to have been
unknown. Inmany cases a system of merchandise some what similar to the
ruinous, oppressive, and obstructive system still common in Shetland, seems to
have been in vogue in many parts of the Highlands. By this system, some of the
more substantial tacksmen would lay in a stock of goods such as would be likely
to be needed by their tenants, but which these could not procure for themselves,
such as iron, corn, wine, brandy, sugar, tobacco, &c. These goods the
tacksmen would supply to his tenants as they needed them, charging nothing for
them at the time; but, about the month of May, the tenant would hand over to his
tacksman-merchant as many cattle as the latter considered an equivalent for the
goods supplied. As the people would seldom have any idea of the real value of
the goods, of course there was ample room for a dishonest tacksman to realise an
enormous profit, which, we fear, was too often done. " By which traffic the
poor wretched people were cheated out of their effects, for one half of their
value; and so are kept in eternal poverty."

As to roads, with the exception
of those made for military purposes by General Wade, there seems to have been
none whatever, only tracts here and there in the most frequented routes,
frequently impassable, and at all time unsafe without a guide. Captain Burt
could not move a mile or two out of Inverness without a guide. Bridges seem to
have been even rarer than slated houses or carriages.

We have thus endeavoured to give
the reader a correct idea of the state of the country and people of the
Highlands previous to the abolition of the heritable jurisdictions. Our only aim
has been to find out the truth, and we have done so by appealing to the evidence
of contemporaries, or of those whose witness is almost as good. We have
endeavoured to exhibit both the good and bad side of the picture, and we are
only sorry that space will not permit of giving further details. However, from
what has been said above, the reader must see how much had to be accomplished by
the Highlanders to bring them up to the level of the rest of the country, and
will be able to understand the nature of the changes which from time to time
took place, the difficulties which had to be overcome, the prejudices which had
to be swept away, the hardships which had to be encountered, in assimilating the
Highlands with the rest of the country.

Having thus, as far as space
permits, shown the condition of the Highlands previous to 1745, we shall now, as
briefly as possible, trace the history down to the present day, showing the
march of change, and we hope, of progress after the abolition of the heritable
jurisdictions. In doing so we must necessarily come across topics concerning
which there has been much rancorous and unprofitable controversy; but, as we
have done in the case of other disputed matters, we shall do our best to lay
facts before the reader, and allow him to form his opinions for himself. The
history of the Highlands since 1745 is no doubt in some respects a sad one; much
misery and cruel disappointment come under the notice of the investigator. But
in many respects, and, we have no doubt in its ultimate results, the history is
a bright one, showing as it does the progress of a people from semi-barbarism
and slavery and ignorance towards high civilisation, freedom of action with the
world before them, and enlightenment and knowledge, and vigorous and successful
enterprise. Formerly the Highlanders were a nuisance to their neighbours, and a
drag upon the progress of the country; now they are not surpassed by any section
of her Majesty’s subjects for character, enterprise, education, loyalty, and
self-respect. Considering the condition of the country in 1745, what could we
expect to take place on the passing and enforcing of an act such as that which
abolished the heritable jurisdictions? Was it not natural, unavoidable that a
fermentation should take place, that there should be a war of apparently
conflicting interests, that, in short, as in the achievement of all great
results by nations and men, there should be much experimenting, much groping to
find out the best way, much shuffling about by the people to fit themselves to
their new circumstances before matters could again fall into something like a
settled condition, before each man would find his place in the new adjustment of
society? Moreover, the Highlanders had to learn an inevitable and a salutary
lesson, that in this or in any country under one government, where prosperity
and harmony are desired, no particular section of the people is to consider
itself as having a right to one particular part of the country. The Highlands
for the Highlanders is a barbarous, selfish, obstructive cry in a united and
progressive nation. It seems to be the law of nature, as it is the law of
progress, that those who can make the best use of any district ought to have it.
This has been the case with the world at large, and it has turned out, and is
still turning out to be the case with this country. The Highlands now contain a
considerable lowland population, and the Highlanders are scattered over the
length and breadth of the land, and indeed of the world, honourably fulfilling
the noble part they have to play in the world’s history. Ere long there will
be neither Highlander nor Lowlander; we shall all be one people, having the best
qualities of the blood of the formerly two antagonistic races running in our
veins. It is, we have no doubt, with men as with other animals, the best breeds
are got by judicious crossings.

Of course it is seldom the case
that any great changes take place in the social or political policy of a country
without much individual suffering: this was the case at all events in the
Highlands. Many of the poor people and tacksmen had to undergo great hardships
during the process of this new adjustment of affairs; but that the lairds or
chiefs were to blame for this, it would be rash to assert. Some of these were no
doubt unnecessarily harsh and unfeeling, but even where they were kindest and
most considerate with their tenants, there was much misery prevailing among the
latter. In the general scramble for places under the new arrangements, every
one, chief, tacksman, tenant, and cottar, had to look out for himself or go to
the wall, and it was therefore the most natural thing in the world that the
instinct of self-preservation and self-advancement, which is stronger by far
than that of universal benevolence, should urge the chiefs to look to their own
interests in preference to those of the people, who unfortunately, from the
habit of centuries, looked to their superiors alone for that help which they
should have been able to give themselves. It appears to us that the results
which have followed from the abolition of the jurisdictions and the obliteration
of the power of the chiefs, were inevitable; that they might have been brought
about in a much gentler way, with much less suffering and bitterness and
recrimination, there is no doubt; but while the process was going on, who had
time to think of these things, or look at the matter in a calm and rational
light? Certainly not those who were the chief actors in bringing about the
results. With such stubbornness, bigotry, prejudice, and ignorance on one side,
and such power and poverty and necessity for immediate and decided action on the
other, and with selfishness on both sides, it was all but inevitable that
results should have been as they turned out to be. We shall do what we can to
state plainly, briefly, and fairly the real facts of the case.

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